Dear Friends
The Lord enters the Jordan and is baptised by His cousin, the Forerunner, and we are tempted to think, “Christ was baptised like we are baptised,” or “we bless water at this feast because it involves water.” But Christ does not come for baptism like we do, since He is without sin, and water is involved but there is a deeper meaning.
After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying:
Joshua 1:1–5
‘Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel.
Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses.
From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory.
No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.’
After the wandering in the desert for forty years, Jesus the son of Nun—since in Greek, ‘Joshua’ is translated as ‘Jesus’—leads the people of God through the Jordan to conquer the Promised Land, to drive away all the pagan gods and demonic powers.
So Joshua said to the children of Israel, ‘Come here, and hear the words of the Lord your God.’
Joshua 3:9–11, 13
And Joshua said, ‘By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Hivites and the Perizzites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Jebusites:
Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over before you into the Jordan. …
And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, the waters that come down from upstream, and they shall stand as a heap.’
Indeed,
The sea saw them and fled,
Psalm 113:3, 5 ʟxx
The Jordan turned back; …
What is it to you, O sea, that you fled,
And to you, O Jordan, that you turned back?
But the children of Israel—us!—did not hold onto the Promise. So Joshua said before his death,
You have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations because of you, for the Lord your God is He who has fought for you.
Joshua 23:3–13
See, I have divided to you by lot these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from the Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, as far as the Great Sea westward.
And the Lord your God will expel them from before you and drive them out of your sight. So you shall possess their land, as the Lord your God promised you.
Therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, lest you turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left,
and lest you go among these nations, these who remain among you. You shall not make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause anyone to swear by them; you shall not serve them nor bow down to them,
but you shall hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day.
For the Lord has driven out from before you great and strong nations; but as for you, no one has been able to stand against you to this day.
One man of you shall chase a thousand, for the Lord your God is He who fights for you, as He promised you.
Therefore take careful heed to yourselves, that you love the Lord your God.
Or else, if indeed you do go back, and cling to the remnant of these nations—these that remain among you—and make marriages with them, and go in to them and they to you,
know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. But they shall be snares and traps to you, and scourges on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.
Because we made mention of the name of their gods, it was necessary for Christ to again enter the Jordan and then drive out pagan worship from the land, to call back to God His people through the call to repent and to cast out the demonic powers which we see throughout the Gospel. And we, the Church, are called to continue this purpose. We bless water as a means to purify the land, to purify ourselves and our homes, so that the power of Christ may be proclaimed. Every time we sin we leave a mark, a stain, on the world which gives demonic powers a presence in the world and we do not want them to be here among us, around us. So we bless our homes again, we remove their foothold, we proclaim once again that Christ is victorious.
The Baptism of Christ, called ‘Theophany’ which means ‘revelation of God,’ is our invitation to join again the fight against death, sin and idolatry: indeed, we must fight. Christ has defeated their power but we must fight with Him, join His rout of the enemy, the Devil.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us join ourselves again to the Victory of Christ, let us participate again in His baptism that the powers of darkness may be destroyed and all may come to the risen Christ through our witness of His Light.
Come and see!
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
How many, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in our society are yearning? For what? They might not know but something is pricking their conscience, they have a nostalgia for an unknown memory, a homesickness despite them thinking they are already at home, a wistfulness and longing for something on which they cannot quite place their finger. So they get on with their lives: what else is there to do? They try—some more successfully than others—to gain wealth, to maintain their health, to form relationships. But there’s still something missing and in the end death ensnares all.
For some of these they stop and think to themselves, “there must be more to life than this!” Despite the technological, scientific, medical, digital and other progresses made by our race we have still not arrived in utopia. There is still suffering, there is still injustice, there is still wrongdoing, and perhaps the recognition of the stalling of progress in recent years has laid bare the lie of modernism: while a secular and atheistic society promises an ever improving world if only we submit to it, if only we worship it, it cannot even deliver on its promise. And the yearning—for so long drowned out in the background by growing wealth, technology and entertainment—can once again be heard by a larger portion of the population.
And they step forward and seek that which they do not know. Various names and ideas get bandied about: being authentic, being real, seeking truth, seeking reality. They find a name around which a nebulous of an idea can coagulate and thicken and they follow that star. And they come to us for directions.
…
Read this Sermon, Follow Him together.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
The Lord comes and we expect victory, the Lord enters into Creation, the Beginningless begins, and we want parades and triumphs, we want kings and emperors brought to their knees before the God of all. And yet, as a small and vulnerable child he must flee to Egypt and fourteen thousand infants are massacred. And we are scandalised by this, “Why the suffering, O Lord?” we call out in distress, “Why the murder of so many innocents?”
“Christ is born, glorify Him,” St Gregory the Theologian tells us,
“Christ from heaven, go out to meet Him. Christ on earth; be exalted. Sing unto the Lord all the whole earth; and that I may join both in one word, Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, for Him Who is of heaven and then of earth. Christ in the flesh, rejoice with trembling and with joy; with trembling because of your sins, with joy because of your hope.”
— St Gregory the Theologian, Oration 38, I
Christ came not to tour His creation, to make a flying visit, but to redeem the creature whom He loves. God has promised us,
“I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.”
— Genesis 8:21
God has come to save us, to save me, from the consequences of my sin. But what He has to work with is us, and we have been killing each other, exploiting each other and stealing from each other from the beginning. And at this moment, the moment of Christ being born in Bethlehem of Judea, humanity continues in our cruelty and malice.
…
Read this Sermon, Why the Suffering, O Lord?
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Saturday 3rd January
Great Vespers, 6.30 pm
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Sunday 4th January
Matins & Divine Liturgy, 9 am
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Online session is via Google Meet: please get indd contact for the details.
Please join us: all are welcome, come and see.
Attending Church
We meet at 3rd URC Scout HQ, Kings Rd, Chandlers Ford SO53 2EY. The Scout hall is behind and to the left of the URC Church. Come and See.
Can I help you?
I am here for you, you need only ask. Is there a way I can support your life of faith? Get in touch.
Can you help the parish?
Yes, absolutely. Offer yourselves to the Lord: pray! Make available to him all your talents and ask him how he would like you to use them — listen for his reply.
Your prayers!
With love in Christ
Fr Alexander
webenquiry@orthodoxeastleigh.uk